On this week’s podcast, Wolfe discusses an “underlying problem” in American politics, which he calls a “penchant for despotism, for something resembling populism; a search for quick answers; an almost visceral turning away from thoughtfulness, from reason, from understanding that politics is just simply not capable of satisfying people’s immediate emotions.”

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He does turn his attention to President Donald Trump. “He’s tapping into deep currents in American cultural and political life,” Wolfe says. “Yet he’s so extreme, and he possesses such exaggerated features of those tendencies, that you could also say that he’s unique.”

Nadja Spiegelman visits us this week, to discuss two newly published books by Lucia Berlin, “Evening in Paradise: More Stories” and “Welcome Home: A Memoir With Selected Photographs and Letters.” Spiegelman talks about encountering Berlin’s work and falling in love with it “in that deeply personal way — ‘This writer is mine, this writer is speaking to me, no one else will ever understand the depth of the love that I feel for this’ — that I think Lucia Berlin’s writing sparks in so many people.”

Also on this week’s episode, Alexandra Alter has news from the publishing world, and Dwight Garner, Parul Sehgal and Jennifer Szalai talk about the books they’ve recently reviewed. Pamela Paul is the host.

Here are the books discussed by The Times’s critics this week:

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

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